Flapping to the End
by lackinginregret
Summary: Flappy is kidnapped and thrown into a game of death she never could have prepared herself for.


The air was stale. Flappy sat close together with other birds in a cramped metal container. There must have been a hundred of them, all waiting together; for what, they did not know.

Flappy was a young bird; her bright yellow flight feathers had only grown in a few weeks before, and she had only had the opportunity to fly a handful of times since then, all before she was taken. The large ones had scooped her up along with her siblings. They'd been separated, and now she was surrounded by strangers.

Few had begun to speak to one another and only in whispers; the dread for what was to come hung in the air silencing the majority. Flappy found herself unable to join in the small conversations going on around her, her own fear was too great.

She had heard rumors of the sacrifices, of young birds stolen from their homes and taken to an unknown location. None had returned, and few had ever witnessed the kidnappings, let alone what had happened after. The stories had always frightened Flappy when she was a hatchling, sparking nightmares and speculation amongst her and her siblings, but never had she suspected that the stories were as real as they had been terrifying, nor did she ever truly believe that she would be among those who were taken.

She heard the cage's door open, and for just a second light flooded into the cramped metal container. A giant hand entered, and an older bird up front was suddenly snatched from their numbers; his startled cries echoed throughout the small enclosure. He was pulled from the container and the door closed. A minute or so passed before she heard a sickening crunch and the door was opened once again, the next young bird snatched.

Flappy lost track of how many times the process had been repeated. More than half the population of the cage was gone, but despite the now ample room Flappy and the other birds sat all huddled together as far from the door as they could, each one unwilling to be the next chosen by the hand. The rare small conversations had ceased completely; inside the container was complete silence. Even from her spot towards the middle of the group, Flappy could hear nothing but occasional shuffling and the ruffling of feathers from the terrified birds around her.

The door opened again and the birds around her began pushing and shoving, desperate not to be taken. Flappy felt herself being pushed from the middle; she tried hard to push back, to fight the crowd, but she wasn't strong enough, and she was quickly ejected from the group.

Fear came over her as she felt the hand approaching. It seemed to move side to side, searching for its victim.

The hand snatched her none to gently. Flappy squawked with discomfort and pain as she was dragged out, her desperate screeches ignored. Light filled her vision, blinding her for a second. She heard the door shut as she was turned around and placed on a small wooden platform.

The ceiling shut before she could react, and Flappy was left to examine her new surroundings. Before her a room loomed, the only visible exit a space between two long horizontal strips of walling painted green and speckled with irregularly spaced splotches of red; the walls lay parallel to each other. The wall to her right appeared to be a mirror of some sort and it reflected the one to her left which was some sort of sickeningly happy painting designed to look like the outdoors, complete with the tall buildings of a city in the distance.

The platform was dropped out from under her, and Flappy began to fall. She had never felt so heavy before; even her first time flying had been easier than this. She barely had the time to try to force her body to keep afloat before she realized the back wall had begun moving towards her rapidly. Desperately she worked to align herself between the gap in the green walls as she flew, her heavy body forcing her to continuously flap so as to avoid falling. As she approached the green walls, she let out a horrified squawk.

What she had assumed to be red paint was in fact blood. Yellow feathers stuck to some areas and when she glanced down she could see the horrible crushed remains of the birds who had left them. Bones were exposed in some areas, organs indecipherable from being crushed repeatedly. There appeared to be dozens, if not hundreds of corpses. Flappy felt as though she was going to be sick, but she knew she had to keep going.

Flapping desperately she made it past the walls. As she went she felt a sharp pang of relief, before dread filled her anew as she saw yet another set of walls, nearly identical to the last save for the gap's changed position.

On and on she went, the pattern continued. Five walls, ten walls, twenty, thirty, by wall forty she could barely keep her wings flapping. Exhaustion filled her small body.

'Do these walls ever stop coming?' Flappy thought to herself after the forty-third set of walls.

As the forty-sixth set of walls loomed before her, her aching wings gave out for a second. Flappy recovered quickly, but as the walls approached she realized she was too close to the bottom wall, quickly she flapped upwards, avoiding it.

Only to hit the top wall.

Pain flashed through her body as she fluttered down to the floor. As she laid there dying, a halo of blood surrounding her limp form and the walls approaching to crush her, she thought she heard a voice.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuck! Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh! Damn this fucking game!"


End file.
